One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey [139]
McMurphy thought this over, looking at the backs of his hands. He looked back up to Harding.
“Harding, what is it? What happens?”
“You mean all this?”
McMurphy nodded.
Harding shook his head. “I don’t think I can give you an answer. Oh, I could give you Freudian reasons with fancy talk, and that would be right as far as it went. But what you want are the reasons for the reasons, and I’m not able to give you those. Not for the others, anyway. For myself? Guilt. Shame. Fear. Self-belittlement. I discovered at an early age that I was—shall we be kind and say different? It’s a better, more general word than the other one. I indulged in certain practices that our society regards as shameful. And I got sick. It wasn’t the practices, I don’t think, it was the feeling that the great, deadly, pointing forefinger of society was pointing at me—and the great voice of millions chanting, ‘Shame. Shame. Shame.’ It’s society’s way of dealing with someone different.”
“I’m different,” McMurphy said. “Why didn’t something like that happen to me? I’ve had people bugging me about one thing or another as far back as I can remember but that’s not what—but it didn’t drive me crazy.”
“No, you’re right. That’s not what drove you crazy. I wasn’t giving my reason as the sole reason. Though I used to think at one time, a few years ago, my turtleneck years, that society’s chastising was the sole force that drove one along the road to crazy, but you’ve caused me to reappraise my theory. There’s something else that drives people, strong people like you, my friend, down that road.”
“Yeah? Not that I’m admitting I’m down that road, but what is this something else?”
“It is us.” He swept his hand about him in a soft white circle and repeated, “Us.”
McMurphy halfheartedly said, “Bull,” and grinned and stood up, pulling the girl to her feet. He squinted up at the dim clock. “It’s nearly five. I need me a little shut-eye before my big getaway. The day shift doesn’t come on for another two hours yet; let’s leave Billy and Candy down there a while longer. I’ll cut out about six. Sandy, honey, maybe an hour in the dorm would sober us up. What do you say? We got a long drive tomorrow, whether it’s Canada or Mexico or wherever.”
Turkle and Harding and I stood up too. Everybody was still weaving pretty much, still pretty drunk, but a mellow, sad feeling had drifted over the drunk. Turkle said he’d boot McMurphy and the girl out of bed in an hour.
“Wake me up too,” Harding said. “I’d like to stand there at the window with a silver bullet in my hand and ask ‘Who wawz that’er masked man?’ as you ride—”
“The hell with that. You guys both get in bed, and I don’t want to ever see hide nor hair of you again. You get me?”
Harding grinned and nodded but he didn’t say anything. McMurphy put his hand out, and Harding shook it. McMurphy tipped back like a cowboy reeling out of a saloon and winked.
“You can be bull goose loony again, buddy, what with Big Mack outa the way.”
He turned to me and frowned. “I don’t know what you can be, Chief. You still got some looking to do. Maybe you could get you a job being the bad guy on TV rasslin’. Anyway, take ’er easy.”
I shook his hand, and we all started for the dorm. McMurphy told Turkle to tear up some sheets and pick out some of his favorite knots to be tied with. Turkle said he would. I got into my bed in the graying light of the dorm and heard McMurphy and the girl get into his bed. I was feeling numb and warm. I heard Mr. Turkle open the door to the linen room out in the hall, heave a long, loud, belching sigh as he pulled the door closed behind him. My eyes got used to the dark, and I could see McMurphy and the girl snuggled into each other’s shoulders, getting comfortable, more like two tired little kids than a grown man and a grown woman in bed together to make love.
And that’s the way the black boys found them